2013 – Israeli Air Force aircraft strike a target in Syria for the first time since 2007. The United States claims that the target was a truck convoy carrying antiaircraft weapons, but the Syrian government claims it was a nearby defense research facility in Jamraya, just north of Damascus.[1][2]
2012 – An Indian Air Force HAL HJT-16 Kiran Mk2 exploded in mid-air Iyancherry village in Kancheepuram district in South India. The two pilots ejected safely.
2009 – Death of Walter Omiccioli, Italian WWII pilot who flew in the Italian Air force until 1973, commanding a T-33 Squadron.
2007 – A Boeing 702 spacecraft carrying NSS-8 (Dutch telecommunications satellite) is destroyed when the rocket that was launching it exploded on launch.
2005 – The 2005 Royal Air Force Hercules shootdown was the loss of a Royal Air Force Lockheed Hercules C3, serial number XV179 when it was shotdown in Iraq, probably by Sunni insurgents, killing all 10 personnel on board.
2005 – A British C-130K Hercules C.1P XV179 is shot down north of Baghdad, killing 9 Royal Air Force crew and one British soldier.[4][5]
2001 – Johnnie Johnson, British fighter pilot, dies (b. 1916). Air Vice Marshal James Edgar “Johnnie” Johnson CB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, DFC and Bar was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot who during the Second World War shot down 38 Luftwaffe aircraft, thus becoming the British flying ace with the greatest number of victories during the war.
2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431, an Airbus A310, carrying 169 passengers and 10 crew members, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Côte d'Ivoire after takeoff from Abidjan. Only ten people survive.
1998 – British Airways launches the low-fare airline Go.
1991 – Fleet Air Arm Lynx helicopters (employing Sea Skuas), Royal Air Force Jaguars, and U. S. Navy A-6 Es (using Rockeye cluster bombs) attack an Iraqi naval convoy made up of a minesweeper, three fast-attack craft, and three landing craft carrying troops and ammuniton, breaking up the second and final seaborne component of Iraqi forces in the Battle of Khafji. The Coalition reports that thus far in the Gulf War it has destroyed or disabled 46 Iraqi naval vessels, although another report at about this time claims the total is about 60. Coalition aircraft have inflicted most of the losses.
1988 – A Boeing 747 sets a new around-the-world record of 36 hours 54 min
1985 – Death of Harold Arthur Sydney Molyneux, Canadian WWI flying ace who also served during WWII.
1984 – Death of Kenneth Burns Conn, Canadian WWI fighter ace, businessman who served as head of the Royal Canadian Air Force Historical Section during WWII.
1976 – A Convair PQM-102A Delta Dagger, belonging to the Fairchild Corporation according to a press report, crashed on landing at Bob Sikes Airport, Crestview, Florida when the landing gear collapsed. Airframe destroyed by fire. Sperry Flight Systems pilot, Earl C. Pearce, was unhurt.
1975 – Turkish Airlines Flight 345, a Fokker F-28, crashes into the Sea of Marmara after a missed approach; all 42 on board die; the cause is never determined.
1974 – Pan Am Flight 806, a Boeing 707-321B, crashes on approach to Pago Pago International Airport on American Samoa. 97 of the 101 passengers and crew on board are killed.
1971 – Two Kashmiri men hijack the Indian Airlines Fokker F27 Friendship Ganga and force it to fly to Lahore, Pakistan. They release their hostages there and burn the plane on February 1. India retaliates by prohibiting overflights of its territory by Pakistani aircraft.
1965 – First flight of the Aerial Distributors Distributor Wing, an American prototype agricultural aircraft of unorthodox design. It had a second engine mounted directly below its main powerplant, using this second motor to power a distribution system that used compressed air to carry dry chemicals from a hopper and blow them out of the trailing edges of its wings, over the flaps. Varying the power of this blower engine also provided lift control.
1964 – Launch of Ranger 6, American spacecraft carriying six television cameras high-resolution to photographthe lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.
1964 – Death of Paul Wenzel, German WWI flying ace.
1963 – A Boeing B-52E-90-BO Stratofortress, 57-0018, of the 6th Bomb Wing from Walker Air Force Base, New Mexico, crashes in snow-covered mountains in northern New Mexico, with at least three crew surviving. Aircraft commander Lt. Col. Donald L. Hayes, 39, of Alta, Iowa, and another officer walked through heavy snow to a nearby town in search of aid. Survivors, who parachuted from the bomber, include Lt. Col. Nicholas P. Horangic, 39, radio operator, of Boydtown, Pennsylvania, and Maj. Thomas J. McBride, 42, co-pilot, of Panama City, Florida. Horangic was treated for shock and a possible broken left elbow at a Mora, New Mexico hospital. McBride walked to safety and telephoned the base. Three Lockheed T-33 Shooting Stars and, later, three Douglas C-54 Skymaster transports, circled the area trying to locate other survivors. The pilots reported that they saw two other survivors after the first man walked to safety. The crew also included Maj. Emil B. A. Goldbeck, 40, navigator, of Kennelworth, New Jersey; Maj. George J. Szabo, 44, electronics countermeasures officer, of Columbus, Ohio; and M/Sgt. Burl D. Deas, 39, gunner, of Charleston, West Virginia. The vertical fin was torn off in turbulence. The ECM operator and tail gunner were killed.
1958 – Ernst Heinkel, German aviation engineer, aircraft designer and manufacturer, dies (b. 1888).
1957 – Sikorsky’s HSS-1 S-58 piston-engined helicopter, developed for anti-submarine operations, makes its first flight.
1948 – Air Marshal Sir Arthur "Mary" Coningham KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, DFC, AFC, RAF disappears with G-AHNP Star Tiger, Avro Tudor Mark IV passenger aircraft owned and operated by British South American Airways on a flight between Santa Maria in the Azores and Bermuda. Royal Flying Corps flying ace during WWI, Conningham was later a senior Royal Air Force commander during WWII, as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief 2nd Tactical Air Force and subsequently the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Flying Training Command.
1948 – Orville Wright, generally credited as co-inventor of the airplane, dies at 76
1948 – The BSAA Star Tiger disappearance: an Avro Tudor IV disappears without a trace en route from the Azores to Bermuda with 31 on board. The loss of the aircraft along with the 1949 BSAA Star Ariel disappearance remain unsolved to this day, with the resulting speculation helping to develop the Bermuda Triangle legend.
1946 – Death of Maryse Hilsz, born Marie-Louise Hilsz, French aviatrix and air force test pilot, in the crash of her Siebel 204 due du bad weather.
1946 – Death of Oskar von Boenigk, German WWI fighter ace.
1945 – Consolidate B-24L Liberator44-49180 crashes west of Helendale, California. The crew consisted of 1st Lt. James G. Wright, pilot, 2nd Lt. Norbert J. Vehr, copilot, 2nd Lt. Carl F. Hansen radar instructor, 2nd Lt. John R. Palin radar student, 2nd Lt. Herbert A. Perry, radar student, and T/Sgt. Harvey L. Cook, flight engineer. Perry, Vehr and Cook died during the crash, while the remaining crew members successfully bailed out
1944 – Task Force 58 aircraft attack a Japanese convoy off Kwajalein Atoll and bomb Kwajalein Island, Roi-Namur, Maloelap, and Wotje. They also make the first airstrike against Eniwetok, destroying 15 Japanese Mitsubishi G4 M (Allied reporting name “Betty”) bombers on the ground. American carrier aircraft will continue to strike Eniwetok daily through February 7.
1943 – 30-31 – The H2S radar is used by RAF bombers for navigation for the first time
1943 – Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago (CA-29) is sunk and a U. S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes launched from Mitsubishi G4 M Type 1 and Mitsubishi G3 M Type 96.
1943 – January 30, 1943 – Construction of the incomplete and much-delayed German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin is halted for the last time.
1942 – Canadian Pacific Air Lines is formed by the acquisition and merger of Arrow Airways and Canadian Airways, along with all the various subsidiaries of the latter.
1934 – Soviet pilots Pavel Fedossenko, Andrey Vasenko, and Ilya Usyskin take the hydrogen-filled high-altitude balloon Osoaviakhim-1 on its maiden flight to a record-setting altitude of 22,000 m (72,160 ft), where it remains for 12 min. The 7 h 14 min flight – during which the balloon travels 470 km (292 miles) from its launch site – Ends in tragedy when the crew loses control of the balloon during its descent and the gondola disintegrates and crashes near the village of Potizh-Ostrov in the Insar district of Mordovia in the Soviet Union, killing the crew.
1933 – First flight of the Curtiss T-32 Condor II, an American biplane twin engine airliner and bomber aircraft.
1932 – The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Kaga arrives in Chinese territorial waters at the outbreak of the Shanghai Incident. The Japanese Navy’s use of aircraft carriers in the Shanghai Incident will be history’s first significant combat use of carrier-borne air power.
1931 – First flight of the Tupolev ANT-8, a Soviet experimental flying boat designed by Tupolev, designated "MDR-2" (MDR meaning Morskoi Dalnii Razvedchik, or Naval Long-Range Reconnaissance) by the military.
1930 – First flight of the Tupolev ANT-10 (also known as the R-7), soviet prototype single-engined light-bomber/reconnaissance aircraft
1929 – Inter-Island Airways (today Hawaiian Airlines) is formed.
1916 – First flight of the Gotha G.I, a German 3 seat heavy bomber biplane.
1911 – The destroyer USS Terry (DD-25)makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
1911 – Longest over-water flight to date was made by J. A. D McCurdy on a Curtiss pusher biplane when he attempted to fly from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba. After covering 96 miles, he was forced to land in the sea due to loss of oil through a crankcase crack.
1895 – Birth of Ivan Vasilyevich Smirnov, Russian WWI fighter ace and Dutch airliner pilot.
1894 – Birth of René Pierre Marie Dorme, French WWI fighter ace.
1892 – Birth of Hans Waldhausen, German WW I flying ace.
1892 – Birth of Heinrich Lorenz, German WWI flying ace.
1891 – Birth of Walter Herschel Beech, American pioneer aviator, co-founder with his wife of Beech Aircraft Company.
1891 – Birth of Francesco Pricolo, Italian aviator, Aeronautic engineer and Chief of staff of the Italian Regia Aeronautica during the WWII.
1885 – Birth of John Henry Towers, USN admiral and pioneer Naval aviator.
